Horror author, former Oakmont resident, continues story he started in Netflix 'Residue' series

Pittsburgh-area native John Harrison was in the midst of writing his first novel when he was approached by an English film company interested in turning his book into a Web series.

But they had a request — could he start his story a little earlier?

“They liked the idea for the novel, but they asked if I’d like to do a prequel to my story. They felt they could sell that as a mini-series,” said Harrison, who grew up in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood and, during his teen years, in Oakmont.

That book became the 2015 Netflix mini-series, “Residue,” and Harrison’s forthcoming novel, “Residue: Paramentals Rising,” is the continuation of the story.

The mini-series tells the story of photojournalist Jennifer Preston, who finds herself investigating paranormal events taking place around a quarantine zone the government establishes in the wake of an explosion at a local nightclub.

The pages that would become “Paramentals Rising” were about a quarter of the way done when Harrison backtracked to work on the mini-series.

“The great part is, they fit together really nicely,” he said. “But I had other writing and directing assignments, and so I really had to block out a chunk of time to sit down, go back over my notes and remember exactly where I was heading with the original story.”

The new novel centers around Preston’s sister, Miki, who heads to the quarantine zone in search of her sister. Harrison said he thinks the story has a lot of potential beyond the novel.

“I wanted to create a monster that was different from a Gothic creature like Dracula or a serial killer,” he said. “This ‘paramental’ plague that begins to emerge has a very deep psychological effect on the city as a whole. And so it might wane and wax and rise and fall, but it’s always with us, and I think there could be a lot of story that continues after the novel ends.”

Harrison said he initially envisioned the story as a novel trilogy.

“I would love for the TV series to continue,” he said. “Netflix did want to continue when we set out, but the producers couldn’t come to a financial agreement with them. But I’d love to see it return to TV. It’s a rich story, and I think there’s a lot that can be mined there.”

Harrison is no stranger to horror, and has helped foster his share of scares in a variety of ways over the years. He has served as writer, director or composer on a number of Hollywood horror flicks, including composing the score for George Romero’s 1985 film “Day of the Dead.”

The film was the second of five sequels Romero made after his cult classic, “Night of the Living Dead,” came out in 1968.

“I’d moved back to Pittsburgh in the 1970s after college and spending some time on the road as musician, and I wanted to get my master’s degree at Carnegie Mellon,” he said. “Pittsburgh had a great independent film community. WQED was doing all kinds of programming for national television, TPC was a big production house, I had my company, Image Works. Everybody interacted and that’s how I met George (Romero) and ended up writing the music for ‘Day of the Dead.’”

Over the years, Harrison has had a hand in a number of high-profile horror franchises, from writing and directing an original series version of Stephen King’s “Creepshow” for the Shudder channel, to writing and directing several episodes of HBO’s classic horror anthology “Tales From the Crypt,” and working as a writer, director and co-producer for the “Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune” television series.

“As Lady Gaga once said, I was born this way,” Harrison said with a chuckle. “I grew up reading ‘Weird Tales” and loving Edgar Allen Poe — all of that stuff. I’m working on a new podcast series, ‘John Harrison’s Sinister Stories,’ where we’re going to a series of first-person narratives with music and sound effects, just like the old radio format. I’m hoping to get that started this year.”

“Residue: Paramentals Rising,” Harrison’s third novel, is out now. It is available through his website, OfficialJohnHarrison.com, and at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target and Walmart.